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2.9 The Ones Who Walk Away From Mura'Kesz
Oh, Kebrio, how many of you does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three apparently. One to actually be Grukk in disguise. One to be the real Kebrio. Oh, and one to be the Maharaja's brother in disguise who is attending the Council of Nations in Kebrio's place. Odd enough that our party should stumble upon the house of Kebrio's mistress, but to find him there? Ah, serendipity itself. For his own reasons, Kebrio agreed to help the party navigate their way through Mura'Kesz secretly. Or rather, we suspect he agreed to help Sajaina and the rest of the party just happened to be a ride-along clause. Before they could leave the house, though, Kebrio made a stop upstairs to pick up a ring he had left on the bedside table of his nighttime companion. Sajaina immediately picked it out of his pocket. It turned out to be magical but Timmeron couldn't quickly identify what it did, so it was left for Wryn to figure out while the party worked on not being caught and murdered for either being, or being friends with, Sajaina. So it was that Kebrio lead the way through streets deserted, not trusted by the party at all. He had no idea how much trouble our heroes could get into, however, and things quickly became more complicated. Without giving any reason- and asking Sajaina to “trust that it was necessary” when she asked, Travize opened the window to a house they were passing and went inside. He refused to explain what he was doing in there, but Sajaina was only able to dwell on that for so long when she realized that this was her parent's house. Travize went to leave some money on the dresser for them, but when they turned around, Sajainas adopted father was standing in the doorway. Meanwhile, Baygrith received a message from “Mercury,” warning him of some “bad mojo” that was on the way. Mercury also hinted that one of Baygrith's family members were in the area, though Baygrith couldn't get much more out of him. Suddenly, the Etheric Emitter Torch let loose a howl of sound. Mercury came on again, swearing that is was for Baygrith's own good, before warning him of the Bad Mojo again and cutting the connection. Kebrio hurriedly tells the group that hell meet them over in the performance hall and leads the guards away while the rest of the group circles back. The rest of the party join Sajaina and Travize in Sajaina's parents house, interrupting a rather parental discussion of what on earth Sajaina thought she was doing, young lady! Once they see that they cant stop her from leaving, Sajaina's mother declares that she is going with the party. In a moment of inspiration, Sajaina agrees to this, with the stipulation that the rest of her family would, of course, come as well. After all, if her family isn't in Mura'Kesz, the Maharaja can't possibly harass and torment them. The group did, after all, have quite a few extra rooms aboard the Sky Fortress Formally Known As Yggon's Wrath. In an unrelated aside, they also needed a cleaning crew and would probably benefit from a skilled cook. So, you know, win win. Getting the rest of Sajaina's familly required trekking across the district to their Tavern, in which Sajaina's sister, Jamel, as well as her husband, were hiding. The building had been closed down and boarded up, but that made it a better hiding place, not a worse one. It did mean splitting the group, though, since someone had to go tell Kebrio where to meet the rest of the party. Thus, two teams were formed. Timmeron and Baygrith went with Grukk, Cairean, Ithal and Yatirem to meet Kebrio while Sajaina, Salachi, Travize, and Perlapae/Adalon went to recover Jamel and her husband. Sajaina's group stumbled upon a dead guard laying in an ally. Something seems deeply off about the situation, the feeling confirmed when they see a minuscule disturbance in the air atop a guard tower that they have come to associate with an invisible something skulking about. They stealthily investigate, getting Wryn to dispel the invisibility to reveal a dwarf wearing a full body suit, covered by an oiled cloak. Beneath the body suite seems to be some kind of plating or armor and a Laputian body stone glitters from one of its eye sockets. That doesn't sound too bad, but remember that, to the Laputi, that would be like ripping out someone's kidney and turning it into a rain hat. Effective? Maybe. Absolutely horrifying? Yup. The dwarf seemed to have been spying on the party, even taking notice of their disappearance to look for her. We say 'her' because her voice and beardlessness implied she was female. Whoever she was, she wielded a crossbow with great precision, nearly shooting Sajaina as she tried to apply her Goldenroot poison to get some answers. Before she could touch the woman's face, though, a metal mask not unlike a smelters faceplate slid down to protect her. Sajaina was able to lock eyes with her though, and the dwarf woman froze. Wryn informed Sajaina that she seemed to have tapped into some of the magic in her body- very weird for a sun elf. Whatever it was, the Dwarf woman could not look away from Sajaina. A Compulsion of sorts, Wryn said, suggesting that Sajaina try ordering the woman to do something. Sajaina did- demanding information. All the group was able to learn, though, was that she was following the party- and specifically Baygrith- because she cared about him. After that the magic broke, and the dwarf woman leaped from the tower, sprouting mechanical wings from her back to glide away. So cool! Baygrith would be pissed that he wasn't there to see it. From the top of the tower, thr group saw a fire in the distance, growing larger and spreading through one of the districts of Mura'Kesz. Travize said that he didn't feel right not helping, and his ability to speak to the spirits might help him protect people from the fire. He flew off to help while Sajaina and the rest continued on to her parent's tavern. Of course, since dramatic events tend to follow our heroes, things were about to get even worse. We're sure Kebrio regrets signing up for this. Timmeron, Baygrith and the others met up with Kebrio, claiming that they weren't able to figure out where Sajaina went off to. Kebrio expressed some skepticism, but Timmeron was able to convince him to press on anyway. Disguising everyone as members of a traveling troupe so they could walk around without calling excessive attention to themselves, Kebrio lead Timmeron's group towards their new meeting place with the rest of the party. It wasn't long before they found the hole. It was a dark, deep thing, over ten feet across; a scar on the landscape that never should have survived the constantly shifting sands of the desert. And forth from it sprang the void spawn. Acting quickly, they asked Karhanza to seal the hole while, with the staff they had recovered from Murag, Timmeron corralled the void spawn to keep them from doing too much harm. But there was another thing lurking there, dark and full of savage fury and hunger. A huge serpentine thing tore itself from the hole, borne aloft on insect-like wings. It's mouth, more akin to mandibles than a jaw, let fly with a volley of blazing flame entwined with bitter cold. Houses lost their roofs to flame while their bases froze solid, doors stuck shut. And the staff couldn't control it. Travize, attracted by the fires, arrived to help Timmeron's group as they wielded time magic and druidic art against the flames. Baygrith proved himself an able marksman, taking shots the the horrid monstrosity as it flew havoc circles around the town. While they were able to save people from the fires, or even distract the thing long enough for others to run, nothing the three could do seemed to do more than annoy the thing. Karhana had rigged the hole to implode upon itself and an idea occurred to the three. Using the staff, Timmeron demanded the attention of the sky-terror. It swooped down towards him, opening its mouth to catch him and swallow him whole. Running towards the dark chasm in the ground, Timmeron paralyzed its wings with his nimble magic, causing it to fall face-first into the hole that spawned it. Timmeron himself was nearly caught in the trap they had set as Karhanza trigger her magic and the hole swallowed up the winged thing. Similar things seemed to be happening all over the city. Sajaina's group, too, encountered void spawn, though they did not see the hole from which they came. They found themselves beset by a hideous thing made all of grasping arms and claws, ambling towards them with murderous intent. For the first time, Sajaina drew her new daggers, usable only against an enemy she is willing to kill. She lashed out with them, dealing devastating blows while Sal blasted away at the thing with chords of sharpened song. Adelon practiced Viti's magics, decaying the thing's arms and pouring out healing to her.. er... his? Allies. Sajaina's parents.... cowered. Justifiably, we feel. Through all of it, Sajaina's group finally made it to Jamel's tavern. They found parts of the floor broken, with some void spawn lingering about the place. They dispatched them quickly and went downstairs to find Jamel and her husband unconscious, but alive. They agreed, upon being healed, to get out of the city alongside Sajaina's parents. But before they could leave, they found the upstairs of the tavern completely repaired and full of people. Mystified, they searched for the possible cause, only to find the basement they had just left now in a similar state. After some time they revealed a glyph on the ground, hidden from their site by magic. Dal recognized it as his brothers work. Uh oh. The last time our heroes encountered Finean's work the armies of nations had turned against one another. This was starting to look really bad. Fortunately, Wryn was able to dispel the effect, though it exhausted her. Deciding to get out of there as soon as possible, they hurried to the rendezvous point. Once the group managed to get back together, they shared information. They wanted to get Sajaina's family out of the city before they made their way to the palace to investigate the message Travize and Sajaina had discovered in a prison cell there. Taking care not to reveal their plan to Kebrio, Sajaina pulled Baygrith aside and had him contact Veller with his Emitter Torch. Veller told them they needed to take down the electrified shield around Mura'Kesz before he could do anything and they made that their immediate goal. Deciding that Perlapae (Adelon-we're never going to be used to that) and Sajaina stood the best chance of pulling it off stealthily, the two headed off to one of the control centers for the force field. Interestingly, they found the Maharaja in the tower and hid while he spoke to the guards. Apparenty he was expecting Sajaina to show up at some point and had some kind of device set up to detect her... or something. Waiting until after he left, Sajaina and Adelon made good combined use of wind, poison, and Sajaina's yet uncertain ability to ensnare a subject with her gaze and together they got the guards to tell them what they needed to know about the force field and the “device” the Maharaja mentioned before knocking them out. Even more curious was that Dal recognized the device as the work of Thain, one of the Ascendant supposedly still sealed away in the lost tomb beneath the mountains near Mura'Kesz. Uh oh. PerlAdelonpae disabled the controls for the field and claimed the so called “beacon” for later investigation. They also managed to grab one of the devices that the guards used to communicate with the Maharaja. While the party waited for the duo to return, another of Finean's glyphs appeared, ensnaring them in a vision of Mura'kesz as it might have been during a busy day in the market. {The vision was a clever trap to disguise very real voidspawn, which attacked while the party's senses were ensnared. Wryn came to the rescue again and the void spawn were dispatched. Much more worried about Finean and Albert, the group was practically tapping its toes in wait for Sajaina and Perlapae. When they returned, Baygrith contacted Veller and the group quickly ushered Sajaina's family onto one of his fast moving skiffs before the shield could be fixed. The party finally lets Kebrio help them to the palace without explaining any of the delays. On the way there they ask Karhanza to examine the devices they recovered. Her cunning use of magic enables her to figure out that the 'beacon' is not only tracking Sajaina, but keeping track of her effect on other sun elves, though they are unable to see why or what effect there should be. On the positive side, she is able to break the communication device to allow the party to listen in on the Maharaja if they wish. They try it, but nothing interesting is being broadcast at the time. Additionally, the beacon seemed to be giving off a signal of some kind, sending information to somewhere in the palace. The party resolved that they would find out where that was, ecause there was clearly more going on here than they knew, and it was probably important. Wryn, for her part, identified Kebrio's ring. Apparently the bastard picked it up because it was a tracking device that would report his location to the Maharaja. Without much time to discuss thing with the party- Kebrio was right there, after all- Sajaina makes the hurried decision to throw the ring in the river. Speculation ensues about Kebrio's reasons for helping the party and the likelihood that his help is part of a trap. Getting into the palace proves to be an adventure of its own when, at the servant's entrance along the side, the party comes face to face with Sajaina's niece, Nopia, whom Kebrio asks to fetch her sisters. Sajaina's sisters, we mean. Well... you know... her sisters that share a mother with her. (Incest. Yaaay?) When they see Sajaina, both of them demand she apologize for the hurt and inconvenience her leaving the city placed upon her family. They say this, of course, clad in fine silks, working good jobs in the palace, and having distanced themselves from Sajaina's mother and father to avoid the Maharaja's ire falling upon them. They say this without having offered their help to their mother and sister They say this without suffering so much as a mild annoyance themselves. Bitches, we feel, is an appropriate word for them. But Sajaina decided to be the bigger person and offer and apology, especially since this seemed our best way into the palace. Once inside, Timmeron used his time magic to pause Kebrio so the group could share information they had learned and discuss what to do next. Deciding to use him as much as they could before they ditched him to leave the city, they waited for him to reenter normal time. Once he did, they followed his lead up a magical lift and deeper into the palace. There were guard patrols to dodge around, but Kebrio lead them well enough. There was one close call where he had them hide in a side room used for storing musical instruments- not an unexpected sight for Mura'Kesz, even in the palace. Personally, we wouldn't be surprised if there were a dozen such rooms in the palace. Kebrio said something about Ithal hiding something private in the room and no-one was to touch anything. So, naturally, the group eventually decided to search the room and find out what it was. Kebrio insisted that it was a private matter concerning Ithal, and no-one, especially Sajaina, should be trying to violate that privacy. The group discussed it some more and eventually placed Sajaina in a bubble of silence so she could not hear what turned out to be a song about Ithal's unrequited adoration of Sajaina in poetic verse. They kept the subject matter from Sajaina, but told her it was rather private and she should talk to Ithal if she wanted to know what it was. From there they followed Karhanza's tracking of the Beacon's signal deeper into the palace, eventually coming up against a wall. It being clear that whatever the beacon was sending information to for recording was located on the other side of the wall. Despite searching, no sign of a secret dooor presented itself. At this point, Timmeron decided to try a trick he had been practicing which allowed him to send his mind wandering from his body. Using this clever piece of wizardry, he was able to pass through the wall to inspect the room beyond. What greeted him was a magical laboratory of uncommon quality. The place was strewn with magical apparatus of all kinds, including a few containers of liquid holding apparently dead sun elves. And in the corner, working on some inscrutable piece of magic, was a cloaked figure. Its visible flesh showed hints of scales and a tail poked out from beneath its garments. Its hands bore extra fingers and thumbs. Though gnarled and oddly jointed, its hands were clearly extremely dexterous. This was Thain, master of arcane biology, apparently working for the Maharaja. Timmeron too the liberty of exploring the intendedentrance to the room, finding it to be a secret panel in the Maharaja's own bedchambers. Timmeron returns his mind to his body to find that Sajaina and Adelon have turned his robe backwards as a joke. More importantly, the group had had to ask Baygrith not to mess with Timmeron's arm wile his mind was elsewhere. His plan seemed to have been to mess with it only a little so Timmeron would ask him to fix it, whereupon Baygrith could do so- potentially experimenting with some additional improvements as well. Timmeron was most upset at Baygrith, and Baygrith was most upset at Travize for ratting him out. Telling Kebrio that he would wait for their return- Kebrio being accompanied by Grukk, Caereann, Ithal and Yatirem as lookouts- the group went to investigate the Maharaja's private rooms. Or, you know, not so private, since he and all other Maharaja's had it as their duty to sleep with virtually every woman in the nation. That the current Maharaja preferred men did not change the lack of privacy afforded his private chambers. That said, they found the hallway oddly unoccupied, with naught but a very locked door in their way. When Sajaina tried to unlock the door, though, it popped open of its own accord. As did the secret- and magically booby-trapped- panel in the room! The Maharaja was nowhere to be seen. Probably, now that we come to think of it, because he was busy guiding his nation through a void spawn attack Once inside, the group met Thain and its magical laboratory. Thain itself was actually quite accomodating, suggesting that the party not look at that book over there. Nor were they to read this journal. He would answer questions not directly pertaining to his research just fine, though. It did not, they quickly discovered, enjoy being a slave in all but name. They did have a time limit to investigate, though. Thain was bound by the Maharaja's brother- not the Maharaja himself, interestingly enough, to tell the Maharaja when his experiment was done so he could teleport over to see for himself. So about 15 minutes. The aparty was able to stretch this a little by messing with Thain's experiment, gaining precious time to beg answers from him and search through research notes. Through questioning Thain, as well as stumbling upon a magical journal full of memories, they learned of a few rather important things. First and foremost, the Maharaja had freed Thain to try to devise a way to save his failing people. Hundreds of years of inbreeding had rendered their population unstable as a species. Even with magical disease cures, Thain projected that within two generations, sun elves would no longer be able to bear children. The Maharaja rejected mixing with other races as an option, instead deciding to find a way to keep Mura'Kesz as it was in order to preserve its culture and way of life. So instead he sought out the old High Tender of Laputa, Adelon (yes, the same man now sharing headspace with Perlapae). He had begged of Viti her ability to grant life, asking her to save his people. She had refused his proposal, but Adelon had not. While many tactics had been tried over the years, all had failed. Even Thain was unable to extend the sun elf lifespan and restore fertility to their people easily enough to manage it as a solution itself. So instead the Maharaja had worked with Adelon to embed one of the stones of the Motherborn directly into a child in an effort to force a specific confluence of traits that would allow the child to be sacrificed in a magical ritual that could help the people of Mura'Kesz repair some of the damage their cultural habits had foisted upon their bodies. The child in question was Sajaina. The ritual in question was the one Thain was about to finish preparing for. At least now we know why the Maharaja was so angry that Sajaina left Mura'Kesz, so that's good news. Right? … Right...? Working fast, the party sought to convince Thain to join their cause and fight against the trouble fast approaching Tirisea. It wasn't being able to be a hero that moved him, though. When Sal suggested that Thain would get to act against Albert by joining the party, he agreed immediately. That still left the issue it being bound to the Maharaja's brother, currently in the Coral Isles at the Council of Nations. But Karhanza had a way! It was a little risk,y she said. Mind you, her definition of 'risky' generally means that, if it fails, things might start exploding or ignoring the laws f the universe. Desperate for anything to stop Thain from finishing the ritual and summoning the Maharaja, the party went for it. In what may have been a 50-50 chance at success, Thain was suddenly free! It stopped its work on the ritual immediately, calling upon blood magic to eradicate the laboratory. It did inform Sajaina, though, that it could set up the ritual again, if she decided she wanted to give her life for her people... Horrified, and with much to think about, the party prepared to venture deep into the tunnels beneath the palace to investigate Thain's door in case a second Ascendant lay inside. Woe betide the Maharaja if their path should happen to cross his this night. Category:Quests